Red October Subs & Sandwiches

One of the things I decided I needed to add to my gaming collection is modern/post-apocalyptic buildings with interiors.  These are largely what all the scatter terrain I've been painting over the past couple of weeks will be populating.

About two or three years ago I bought a set from TT Combat that was 3 single floor store fronts with second floor apartments.  Unfortunately I assembled two of the buildings before I became aware of a problem (it's one of those 'now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it' things), there is no way to get from the first floor to the second floor.  For my third building I will be cutting out a hole in the ceiling/floor to accommodate a staircase but for the two I've already built I just decided to leave the second floor off.

I should also point out to anyone new to MDF scenery that it largely comes in two flavours; super basic having no interior detail but being amazingly inexpensive, and fully detailed but far more expensive.  All of the TT Combat buildings I got fall into the first category.  That may seem basic but the price was amazing and they can be dressed up with scatter terrain.

I actually tried something a little different this time and undercoated the building dark brown and then painted over top of that.  I was hoping to get more of a dirty worn look and that seems to have worked out fairly well.  I also decided to add a splash of colour and detail by wallpapering the interior walls, which I think makes the building look more like a real place and less like a model kit.

I took these pictures while I was waiting for the Mod-Podge on the paper to dry so I will probably still go back and dirty it up a bit.  I also kept the doors I cut off the building as I may use those as rubble or in another terrain project.

What are your thoughts?  For about $10 worth of kit and material an less than 2 hours work I'm really happy with this and using it as a template I should be able to get a reasonable collection of buildings done fairly quickly.

-Jay

Are those mattresses....sanitary?

I mentioned in my last post that after acquiring my 'fantasy' beds I had found some beds more appropriate to post-apocalyptic gaming.

A few years ago when I placed my first order for TT Combat buildings I grabbed a couple of their resin accessory packs which included these...gently-used mattresses.

These are perfect as they look like the exact bedding you find scattered around the capitol wasteland in Fallout 3.

My collection of scatter terrain is filling in nicely but hopefully on Tuesday I'll have time to finally complete a more sizable piece.

-Jay

Now I lay me down to sleep

Although I'm finally getting around to getting an assortment of scatter terrain done a fair bit of it is stuff I've collected over the past few years.  Quite awhile back when I started playing This Is Not A Test I bought these Reaper Bones beds, they're intended for fantasy games, but I thought their ramshackle appearance would fit in with the look of post apocalyptic games.

As it turns out I found something else that will work better for This Is Not A Test and Fallout that you'll hopefully be seeing in a few days.  But having said that it's still nice to have these and they should work as set dressing in a variety of games.

I got these Reaper beds as well as many of my other miniatures and games from my Friendly Local Game Store.

-Jay

Barricades, Scatter Terrain, and Objective Markers

Although I've still got a few miniatures I need to get painted in the next few days I've decided to take a short detour and get some modern/near-future/post-apocalyptic terrain done.  Traditionally I've done most of my gaming away from my home so my terrain collection has been relatively sparse for the amount of gaming I do.  With everything going on in the world right now I've been exploring solo miniature gaming a bit and it's definitely highlighted some shortfalls in my collection.  I'm reasonably well stocked for fantasy terrain but my modern/near-future collection is a little bit one-dimensional. 
The main things I wanted to get done over the next few days were some scatter terrain and one building with a detailed interior.  Today is the scatter terrain.

I've started with two of Mantic's Walking Dead All Out War scenery packs.  These packs are AMAZING and terrific value for money.  I highly recommend them to anyone looking for scatter terrain for any modern or near-future gaming.  The key features of the Walking Dead packs for me are that they are 'generic' real-world styled (so nothing to tie them to a specific game or even genre really) so they should work across every game I want to use them for, and being plastic they take paint well and should be very durable and hold up to regular use.

First up are the barricades.  The Walking Dead barricades are extremely well detailed without being cluttered or difficult to paint.  I also really appreciate that the sculptor put as much work into the backside of every barricade as they did in to the front facing side.

The thing I really liked visually about these barricades is that they have enough different materials and textures to be visually interesting without being too 'busy'.

Next up are the objective markers, which when not being used as objective markers can just be some clutter and window dressing for the tabletop.

The objective markers are nice (I have to come up with a better way to paint garbage bags though), with my one real criticism being that the backpack and the suitcase feel way too big and out of scale with the other pieces as well as the 25-28mm models they are meant to work with.  Having said that, having modeled representations of objectives rather than flat counters is a huge improvement and in my case (with two sets) I would only end up using them in games that required more than six objective markers.

I'm really happy with how all this stuff turned out and it looks good with pretty much any period appropriate models.

Next up is a single small building with some interior details!

And always please remember that The Walking Dead All Out War and many other great miniature games are available from your Friendly Local Game Store.

-Jay

A long overdue return to the wateland

It's been a while.  It seems like not that long ago two different flavours of post-apocalyptic gaming were  my main miniatures focus; zombies, and Fallout or Fallout inspired games.  Gears shifted, things changed and Fallout had been left behind for what seems like over a year now.  Two things have changed that in the past few weeks.  First my buddy Andrew wants to get back to playing This Is Not A Test when we're all allowed to go outside and stand within 6 feet of each other again, and secondly I've been playing some Fallout 4 and it's gotten me excited about the look and feel again.

Deciding I would paint some new models I pulled out the copy of Fallout by Modiphius I got when it was initially released, took a deep breath, and finally started working on those models,  For anyone who doesn't remember I was super excited about Fallout leading up to this game's release, but then once I had it (the version with vinyl figures) in my hands I was super disappointed in the state of the warped bases.  I decided to push past that feeling and simply chop the bases off and re-base the figures.  While waiting for the primer to dry I flipped through the rulebook and had also totally forgotten that Fallout included rules for solo play, so this also meant I'd be able to get some games in during the current lockdown.  So although I'm ultimately painting the 'survivors' to use in my This Is Not A Test game, I decided to start off by painting the Super Mutants as they will be my AI force for Fallout.

The two player starter comes with three Super Mutants and two Super Mutant Hounds.  I decided to do the hounds first, and hopefully will get the actual Super Mutants done this weekend.

I still need to do some cleanup around the eyes (I'm starting to feel like that could be a copy-paste comment in every blog entry lately) but overall I'm happy with how the hounds turned out.  They have a lot of great texture and one thing I didn't even realize until I started painting them is how much more feral and savage these look for not only having huge sharp teeth but a lot of exposed gum area to really give the impression that they're snarling.

I'm looking forward to batch painting the Super Mutants next and then it will be the survivors one at a time.  Once I get those done and have a chance to do some solo play I'll probably circle back and review the game itself as well.

And just a friendly reminder that Fallout Wasteland Warfare and many other games are available from your friendly local game store!

-Jay

She's the captain now

I finished (mostly) one more figure late last night to join my special forces team.  I say 'mostly' because macro-photography has revealed more than a few areas that need some touching up.

This is another USAriadna figure for Infinity and I figured she looks just different enough from the other two troopers to stand out as a leader.

I'm going to take a short pause from the Apocalypse to paint a fantasy figure and start costing out my force and figuring out what kind of fanciness I can afford to add.

-Jay

They don't 'survive' in the post-apocalypse, they 'thrive' in it!

I've been playing a lot of post-apocalyptic games lately and as much as I've done the wacky (lots of Gamma World inspired stuff) I've decided to take a crack at painting some stuff that's more in line with some of the other fiction and games I've been in to.

One of the popular concepts in fiction and gaming is a pre-apocalypse society having put fail safes into place should the apocalypse happen.  This is the basic idea behind the video game The Division as well as the roots of both The Brotherhood Of Steel and The Enclave in Fallout.  For myself I've been reading a fiction series called The Remaining and am an old enough gamer to have played The Morrow Project RPG.

To that end I've decided to paint some high-tech near-future military figures with the idea of using them both as Reclaimers for This Is Not A Test and professional operators for Last Days.

I have an assortment of USAriadna models for Infinity that should be perfect.  I started with two basic assault rifle armed troopers but if I stick with it I've got some support weapon models to add in later.

Not sure how far I'll take this but I expect to paint at least a few more of these before I get distracted by the next shiny thing.

-Jay

Yul

Feline Force Five is done!

I've painted my final cat, Yul.  Because every successful post-apocalyptic warband needs a Siamese cat with an M-16.

I've got to properly points out my stuff for my This Is Not A Test game on Thursday.  I think I'm under by roughly 50 barter script so there might be a hired gun in my future.  Perhaps some sort of...robot?

Anyhow, probably a one or two day break before starting on anything new and then probably some more stuff for D&D.

-Jay

Cecil the Lion-Man

Four down, one to go!

My second last catman, Cecil The Lion-Man is ready to rock!

Reaper has a few figs on their site filled as a Steampunk Wizard Of Oz group that I thought were pretty cool.  The Tin Woodsman might be an add for later but as I was looking for cat-people their take on the Cowardly Lion was my first choice.

For his skin and hair/mane I went for a fairly basic lion colour scheme but once I was holding him in my hand it was super-obvious that had I painted his skin fist and goggles red he would look exactly like a certain boy from hell.

-Jay

Julio Jaguar

I've moved past the monstrously large cats and into the 'normal' (doesn't quite seem like the right word) man-sized cats.

Julio Jaguar will be my psychic mutant.  Julio is a figure from an old Pulp City three pack; the Dark Solar pack.  I bought that pack to use Solar as a generic superhero in a superhero RPG I was playing in a few years ago, I guess I lucked out that I had an extra catman laying around.


The nice thing is that Julio has way less (as in no) tech gear or equipment so although I'm painting him for a This Is Not A Test game in a few days he's more perfect than most of the figures I've painted for Mutant Crawl Classics.

Two more cat-people are hanging out on my painting desk and will hopefully be done before the weekend is out.

-Jay

Here kitty kitty kitty!

My first 2 mutant big cats are done.  I say big cats because both of these dudes are on 40mm bases and are closer to ogre-sized than to man-sized.

I finished up my Lykoi and although I'm not entirely happy with how the tartan turned out for a first attempt I'm relatively pleased.  I may have to dig through my box of unpainted models and see if I have another kilt wearing model I can experiment on.

I did these 2 first because I was excited about the models.  It's time now to start constructing a roster and figuring out what else I need to paint to make up a starting force for This Is Not A Test.

-Jay

Lykoi (WIP)

I was hoping to finish my second cat today but his tartan is taking longer than I expected (I honestly surprised myself that the words I just typed form a sentence).

My next cat, and probably leader figure is Lykoi.  A lykoi is a relatively new breed of cat that looks like a wolf.  This allowed me to use one of the awesome Infinity antipode models in my feline force.

I'm usually a fairly boring painter and don't try new things as often as I should but I decided to try something new and am working on a tartan.  I found a few great articles online about painting tartans and I have to say like a lot of things it becomes far less daunting when someone breaks it down step-by-step.

Tomorrow is a shorter day at work so with any luck I can finish Lykoi and hopefully get atleast one or two other models started.

-Jay

Tabby!

Tabby, the first of my mutant cat-people is almost done!  Just need to finish the basing and the eyes and he's good to go!

Tabby is a Reaper Miniatures Tigerian Merc armed with an axe, holstered sidearm and grenades.  You'll get a better sense of this in a few days when I post my full feline war-party but Tabby is also really big (that's a 40mm base he's standing on!).

Tabby is slated for use in a couple of upcoming games.  He's going to be one of my main mutant characters for my next This Is Not A Test game against Tom Carter and his warband of Alf miniatures.  There's also a 100% chance of feline manimals being discovered in the areas surrounding Port Dever in my future Mutant Crawl Classics adventures.

The next 3 days are 100% cat-people painting so by Tuesday a decent-sized force of cats should be on the prowl.

-Jay

Almost ready for my almost first Mutant Crawl Classics funnel!

I wonder how many times during the time I've been writing this blog I've used the expression "best laid plans of mice and men..."?  A small group of friends and I were planning on playing through our first 0-level funnel tomorrow but once again real-life called an audible and the game is off, at least for a change it's not my schedule disrupting things for everyone else :)

So I had today off and rushed through getting 11 of the 12 miniatures done we needed for tomorrow.  Six of them were just re-bases and touch-ups of some older models and I painted five new figures today.  It was a bit of a time crunch so I really just slapped paint on basic models but now that I have time before we're actually going to play I'm going to go back and add some debris and salvage to these guys to make them feel a bit more appropriate to the setting.

Having said all that let me show you what I got done today.

In Mutant Crawl Classics characters at 0 level start off in one of four categories; Humans, Mutants, Manimals or Plantients.  Today I was making due with models I had on hand so although I represented all four groups Plantients got the short end of the stick (pun intended).

First up the humans.

Three of these are re-purposed figures from previous games.  The guy on the left of the picture is my old Dungeon Crawl Classic character Jaqar.  Ironically he's no longer a suitable miniature for the fantasy game I'm playing because he should have more hi-tech gear.  The next figure over in the jeans and leather jacket is new, he's a Cursed Earth Desperado from the Judge Dredd miniature game.  Next in line is the jester I painted for the first round of The Iron Painter three years ago, and finally Bloody Brannigan a pirate model from Warmachine.

Next up the mutants.

Starting again on the left is a Reaper Tiefling Wizard.  Next in line is Junior Angel from Wargames Foundry's Judge Dredd line and finally is a nameless Reaper mutant who looks very Incredible Hulk to me.

Next up the manimals.
(these guys are my favourites)

One the far left we start with some sort of Reaper Lizardman (I lost the package).  Then in the center we have one of my Rangifers from Frostgrave touched up and slightly re-based.  And finally....why not Zoidberg? from Armorcast.

Last up my lone plantient.

This guy is a Games Workshop Dryad which I seem to be using for a lot of games lately.

I'm probably going to phase a bunch of these out and do some conversions that have some suitable looking scrap on them before we reschedule our game so keep an eye out for those.

-Jay

The Mole-Shark

The Mole-Shark is a fearsome and terrifying apex predator who's recent appearance in the wasteland has sparked speculation that there are still hidden enclaves out there practising pre-war genetics research for unknown purposes.

The Mole-Shark is blind and appears to hunt by sense of hearing.  Once attracted to prey it moves with lightning speed both running and jumping as high as 10 feet to get to it's prey by the most direct route possible.  Due to it's lack of scent and vision some warbands have been able to survive attacks by Mole-Sharks by simply going perfectly still and refraining from the use of any weapons or equipment that cause noise.  The Mole-Shark is very clearly not a naturally evolved creature as it is capable of consuming far more than it's lean body and stomach allow it store.  This frequently results in the Mole-Shark almost immediately expelling the bulk of any creature it consumes.

There has been much speculation about the origins (and purpose) of the Mole-Shark with many more questions being asked than answers being given.  The Mole-Shark's true place in the eco-system may never be known.

* The "Mole-Shark" is actually a resin Maw miniature by Hasslefree Miniatures*

-Jay

Mallard joins the Swinetrek expedition

The fourth and final 'new' member of the Swinetrek expedition for This Is Not A Test is Mallard the duck-man.  In my head he sounds exactly like Jason Alexander.  The figure is the Duck with S.A.W. from Black Scorpion Miniatures.

My starting crew for my This Is Not A Test campaign will be the three pigs I had painted last week along with one of my Gallus Gallus miniatures named St Hubert.

I'd like to find a few more sci-fi animal mutants to add to my warband as it grows.  Time to start scavenging around.

-Jay

The star is ready for her close-up

Link Hogthrob might have been the captain and the leader of the Swinetrek but the true star was always Ensign Piggy.

Ensign Piggy is the final of the three characters from my latest Interloper pack (I've got to think what to do next from them) and has been painted a slightly different hue than her two male companions.

This completes the 'core' of my new warband for This Is Not A Test, I do have one more character I want to add and then I think I'll have a look at the freelancer section with an eye to adding something different to add another flavour to my warband.

I can't wait to get these three on the table next week and stick it to the man!

-Jay

The doctor will see you now

The second member of the Swinetrek is now done; Doctor Julius Strangepork.

The doctor is the second figure from the Interloper Miniatures pack that contained the previously painted Link Hogthrob and the soon to be painted Ensign Piggy.

I need to pull out my This Is Not A Test rulebook and figure out exactly what role Doctor Strangepork will play in my warband but regardless of skills or abilities I'm just happy to have him on board.

-Jay